i die by skin infection
I used to be so scared.
Of what, I didn’t know. I don’t think I do, even now. It was some complex combination of nostalgia, a deep fear of death, and the realization that things were not going according to plan, coupled in a discordant haze that was always occupying my mind.
I was the sort of person who planned meticulously beforehand, and then ended up only following the barebones of what I had come up with in a variation of scenarios.
Take school, for example. When I was a kid, I had big dreams. I was going to go to Stanford after graduating from highschool as valedictorian, and get a PhD in occupational medicine, or something.
I’d be rich by the time I was thirty, and I’d take a year or so off to travel the world, exploring sights I’d have never dreamt of, tasting delicious foods I didn’t know existed.
It was all going according to plan, until I entered high school. There’s no nice way to say it.
Put simply, I crashed and burned.
Years of after school extracurriculars, a strained social life, and increasing demands from what was now an inconceivable goal took its toll, and one day I just.
Snapped.
And then, as if it just couldn’t get worse, I died.
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It wasn’t even something as typically regular like getting hit by a truck, or whatever. No, it had to be the stupidest way to die that I’d ever heard of.
Dead by pimple popping.
Sure, I had known that you weren’t supposed to touch your face and rub your eyes all that often, nevermind popping pimples, but dying by skin infection from a tiny pimple pop had to be the most pathetic thing I’d done to date, even including my ridiculously over-the-top crush I still vividly remember from when I was three.
You’re probably thinking, “Why didn’t you notice the symptoms? Go to a doctor? If you were stupid enough to die from pimple popping, you probably deserve it.”
Well first of all, I was really busy and stressed. I wasn’t exactly the most hygienic during that time, and mosquitos were our landlords at that point.
Swelling and rashes were often typical due to the sensitive nature of my skin, my dad was ignorant beyond belief on anything medical, and my mom was out on a long business trip.
Safe to say, by the time I was in enough pain to push through my crippling social anxiety and go to the doctor’s office, sepsis was basically stalking me from three feet away.
And tada. Long version of a ridiculously anticlimactic death.
I’m sure you’re wondering once again, “What is this crazy lady talking about? She’s been talking about dying by pimple infection for however long it’s been, and I didn’t waste good time to listen to utter bull crap.” Just hold on for a little longer.
After I finished dying, in pain and miserable, I, somehow, woke up.
-
The first thing I noticed wasn’t how small I was.
It wasn’t my shitty vision, either. No, the first thing I noticed was that I wasn’t in pain. The second thing I noticed was that the air was fresh.
Like, it was super fresh. It was the kind of cleanliness and good-natured warmth that could only come from being outdoors, with the faintest undercurrent of cigarette smoke. Now normally you wouldn’t say the scent of nicotine and chemicals would smell good, but it’s the nostalgia talking here, so pardon me.
The rustling of leaves was faint, but recognizable in the background. Maybe I was in a park somewhere? But if so, why?
My lack of distinct sight then hit me, followed by a hysteric confusion as to why my clumsiness had been exacerbated by ten times in the span of ten seconds. I opened my mouth to make a cry for help, and yet all that came out was a pitifully heart-wrenching whimper.
I began to panic.
This, no matter how stupid my brother thought I may have been, was most definitely not my sterile ward in the ICU. And, as far as I could tell, there were no familiar people nearby.
My wailing had reached tornado siren level by now, and at this point I was absolutely sure that somebody had simply walked out of the hospital with my decrepit body wrapped in a blanket, dumping me in a forest of some sort.
It was a pretty sensible conclusion at the time, provided I was working with extreme panic, a loss of dexterity, and -9 vision. And then, a blurry, giant face appeared in front of me.
I shrieked.